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How does the Kelvin timeline work (with regards to Star Trek Picard)

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
Star Trek has made it very clear that time travel follows the Back to the Future method of Time Travel. That if you go back in time and change something, the old time line gets erased. Some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, such as Past Tense and Children of Time focus on that as a central tenant of the story.

The Star Trek 2009 movie is about how Spock and some Romulans go back in time and re-write the Star Trek timeline soft reboot style. And then Picard also referenced the super nova that caused the timeline to split, but from the original timeline.

Wouldn't the original timeline been erased the moment the Kelvin timeline was created?
 
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D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
Star Trek has made it very clear that time travel follows the Back to the Future method of Time Travel. That if you go back in time and change something, the old time line gets erased. Some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, such as Past Tense and Children of Time focus on that as a central tenant of the story.

The Star Trek 2009 movie is about how Spock and some Romulans go back in time and re-write the Star Trek timeline soft reboot style. And then Picard also referenced the super nova that caused the timeline to split, but from the original timeline.

Wouldn't the original timeline been erased the moment the Kelvin timeline was created?

Time travel plots are always broken but here it’s clearly the case that the Picard timeline was unaffected by the events of 2009 and that two timelines now exist. Whether or not that jives with other ST time travel stuff, eh, but that seems to be what it is now.
 

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
Yeah, it's a pretty blatant contradiction.

Children of Time featured my original point brilliantly. In it, the crew visits a planet and find that it is populated by their descendants. The main characters are told that they experience an anomaly when leaving the planet which sends them crashing back to the planet 200 years in the past.

The entire episode is a debate about whether or not they should avoid the anomaly (something they're easily able to do since they're aware of it) or willingly endure crashing on the planet, since leaving would instantly erase 8000 people from the timeline.

You think that the powers that be would understand their own rules.
 

Ballthyrm

Member
Being a Star Trek fan, i watched the first season.
I didn't think they could emasculate Picard but they did.

The poor Actors and Artists that have to suffer such shoddy writing. I'm sorry for you.
I want to be in the timeline where Alex Kurtzman get absorbed by the Borg and bring the whole race down by his shear stupidity.

giphy.gif
 

Shouta

Member
Trek has shown both Back to the Future and multiple timelines/universes (Parallels) before so it's mostly a matter of convenience. Picard is a part of the old Trek timeline but honestly, it might be a splinter timeline too. It's kind of hard to say but all I know is that it doesn't exist in my Trek. :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Yeah.. and Voyager has Janeway go back in time to kill herself during the series finale (and taking the Borg queen with her)... which shouldnt be a thing if its the BTTF timeline as then that would change the future and she wouldnt go back in time in this new timeline to make the same sacrafice. So that means it has to be an alternate demension Janeway that came back, but that kinda just feels cheap when you think about it then.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Star Trek has made it very clear that time travel follows the Back to the Future method of Time Travel. That if you go back in time and change something, the old time line gets erased. Some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, such as Past Tense and Children of Time focus on that as a central tenant of the story.

The Star Trek 2009 movie is about how Spock and some Romulans go back in time and re-write the Star Trek timeline soft reboot style. And then Picard also referenced the super nova that caused the timeline to split, but from the original timeline.

Wouldn't the original timeline been erased the moment the Kelvin timeline was created?
The previous timeline isn't erased. It's just that you no longer exist in it from the point you departed to travel back in time and now exist in the new parallel universe/timeline. For the original universe that you departed, it goes on normally for everyone else.

Fwiw does the Picard show take place in the original universe or the Abramsverse?
 
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Stouffers

Banned
The previous timeline isn't erased. It's just that you no longer exist in it from the point you departed to travel back in time and now exist in the new parallel universe/timeline. For the original universe that you departed, it goes on normally for everyone else.

Fwiw does the Picard show take place in the original universe or the Abramsverse?
What if everything post TOS took place in the Abramsverse?
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
The previous timeline isn't erased. It's just that you no longer exist in it from the point you departed to travel back in time and now exist in the new parallel universe/timeline. For the original universe that you departed, it goes on normally for everyone else.

Fwiw does the Picard show take place in the original universe or the Abramsverse?

Picard exists in the original universe.

I subscribe to the many world's theory of time travel. Where if you go back in time to change anything, you create a splinter universe/timeline.

Say you went back to the past to kill your grandfather so you would never be born.

Logic dictates that you couldn't kill your grandfather to prevent yourself from being born. So if you were successful, what you really did was create an alternate timeline/universe where your doppelganger is never going to be born but you clearly were in the original universe you were from.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Picard exists in the original universe.

I subscribe to the many world's theory of time travel. Where if you go back in time to change anything, you create a splinter universe/timeline.

Say you went back to the past to kill your grandfather so you would never be born.

Logic dictates that you couldn't kill your grandfather to prevent yourself from being born. So if you were successful, what you really did was create an alternate timeline/universe where your doppelganger is never going to be born but you clearly were in the original universe you were from.
This is exactly what I was referring to.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
This is exactly what I was referring to.

That's what the Kelvin timeline is. A splinter u universe.

Yes, I know time travel was almost always a single line in past Trek... But the argument can be made that in Yesterday's Enterprise, Guinan was transported to a parallel universe when the Enterprise C went to the Klingon war universe... When the Enterprise C went back to its own timeline (the main Trek timeline), Guinan came back to the main timeline too.

Or her parallel self and her main timeline self were synced up so they both felt the disturbance.

Or I'm thinking too deep into it. LOL
 
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